Which Defensive Position Group Looks the Most Improved for Boston College Football From Last Season?

One facet of Boston College football’s defense that has looked, by far, the most improved from 2025 is its defensive line.

In all honesty, that wasn't going to be super hard to achieve. To say that the Eagles struggled up front defensively last season would be a massive understatement.

BC finished the year with 17.0 sacks as a team, which ranked 116th out of 134 FBS teams, along with 46.0 tackles for loss (128th) while surrendering 177.6 yards per game on the ground (104th).

It was a stark difference from the numbers produced by the 2024 unit with ACC Defensive Player of the Year Donovan Ezeiruaku lining up on the edge every week — Ezieruaku, alone, recorded 16.5 sacks and 20.5 tackles for loss. Yikes.

But still, the players who were added to the defensive tackle and end positions through the transfer portal this offseason have made a truly noticeable impact, at least by the way it looks through a few weeks of fall training camp, and a handful returners made significant strides over the summer.

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— Boston College Football (@BCFootball) August 18, 2026

Above all, depth will be the core component to maintaining a solid defensive front, according to first-year defensive coordinator Ted Roof, who guided Oklahoma’s defense in 2023 to finishing seventh in the nation in tackles for loss per game (7.5).

In 2022, also under Roof’s tutelage, the Sooners ranked eighth in total tackles for loss with 104.0.

“We just got to build, because the thing that we want there is, man, we need depth,” Roof said. “You know, we need to have some quality depth so we can rotate guys so that we’re not down to three or four bodies at the end of the season. So part of that is putting pressure on some of the guys that aren’t starters right now to elevate their game, and that’s just going to push the guys in front of them.”

In the middle, the players who have really stood out are redshirt juniors Chris Marable Jr. and KJ Sampson (Florida State transfer), junior E’LIa Boykin, and sophomores Micah Amedee and Christian Hudson (Colorado transfer).

While BC’s offensive line needs to see improvement in the pass-protection realm before the start of the season, the way Roof has utilized those heavies at the tackle positions is not making their job any easier.

During team periods, the Eagles’ quarterbacks appear to be pressured quite often from the center of the pocket, forcing them to scramble to either side of the field, which ends up throwing off their downfield reads.

The edge has also looked more dangerous in comparison to last year.

Georgia transfer Kris Jones, redshirt senior Onye Nwosisi, redshirt junior Josiah Griffin, junior Favor Bate, redshirt sophomore Demetrius Ballard from Buffalo, and sophomore Israel Oladipupo have all made a firm case to be viable options on the exterior of the line, and the way they are coming together from a chemistry standpoint is highly promising.

“I think we’re in a really good spot,” Jones said on Thursday. “You know, there's always stuff that we can get better at, but right now I think we're in a great spot. We're progressing each and every day at practice, and yeah, I just really think this is a great spot to be in right now.”

Jones, who has been asked to play some inside linebacker in addition to defensive end, is particularly excited about the different elements of Roof’s defense and how that falls back on himself to be as versatile as possible.

“It’s multiple, [so] we run a lot of things,” Jones said. “I feel like my role, I mean, I'm a versatile player, you know? … There's a whole bunch of things that coach Roof likes to do with the defense.”

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